


Wraith

by UnluckyAlis



Series: Ghost Under the Skin [1]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Origin Story, Canon Rewrite, Emotional Trauma, Ghost King Danny, Honestly it's not what you think, Mental Health Issues, No one knows Danny's secret, Psychological Trauma, Realistic, Violence, future self harm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2018-10-28 15:05:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10833726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnluckyAlis/pseuds/UnluckyAlis
Summary: Danny Fenton is an ordinary teenager, he just has crazy ghost hunting parents and a wannabe psychologist for a sister, not to mention the portal to another dimension in his basement. Oh, and don't forget the fact that he's a ghost. Heroes aren't born, they are made, but does it count if they have to die first?





	1. The Colour Green

Danny Fenton did not hate the colour green until that day. In fact, he had no strong opinions whatsoever about it. It was the colour of the ocean, of his best friend’s eyes, but it was also the colour of his parent’s experiments. He had both good and bad memories attached to it. If nothing had happened, he might have ended up liking green very much one day. But something did happen. All because of one stupid loose wire.

His parents were inventors. They had many projects, some of which were centered on great world needs—like a clean efficient energy source with minimal cons—but most of them had to do with ghosts. Specifically hunting them. Jack and Maddie Fenton had devoted their lives to the paranormal long before they met in college. Jack even boasted that he came from a long line of ghost hunters.

Danny, and his sister Jazz, were of the more popular opinion: their parents were crazy, and ghosts didn’t exist. But the Fentons were stubborn and set in their ways. To both sibling’s chagrin, their skepticism did nothing to stop the elder Fenton’s from building a machine they claimed would create a gateway into another dimension where spectral bodies resided.

It was aptly named the Fenton Portal, and during the first week of September in Danny’s freshman year, it became the source of his hatred for the colour green. It wasn’t the only thing the portal made him hate, but green was really what started it all.

“So, what’s supposed to happen?”

Danny was walking home from school with his two best, and only, friends. Tucker Foley was a massive techno geek, and a little bit of a genius in his own right. Dark-skinned with turquoise eyes, he was never seen without his trademark red beanie snug against his head. He was the first friend Danny ever made, and they shared almost everything.

Sam Manson was less dreary than the stereotypical goth, but definitely had the right dark interests and colour scheme. She wore a varying combination of shirts, crop tops, and leggings ranging from black to darker black, with some purple thrown in for flare. She constantly dyed her hair to keep it the same dark shade and had impossibly brilliant amethyst eyes.

“I don’t know, Tuck.” Danny shrugged, shifting his backpack. His shoulders were sore after being crammed into a locker by the school bully. “They plug it in and there’s a door.”

“Ghosts are way to mainstream now,” Sam said. The legs of her purple spider backpack bounced as she walked. “If they are real, I guess that’s pretty cool, and great for your parents. But as it is I think there are better things to obsess over.”

“Yeah, like what?” Tucker asked.

“The environment, for one thing. Stopping animal cruelty, focusing on what’s _real_.” Sam spun around so she was walking backwards, narrowing her eyes at Tucker. “We’re in high school now, we have to start thinking about what’s important.”

“You’re only saying that because ghosts aren’t goth anymore.” Tucker scoffed, waving off Sam’s statement. “Besides, we’re freshman. We have another two years before we need to think about what’s important.”

Danny rolled his eyes as his two best friends kept bickering. They argued over many things, though usually it was about food. Danny’s role ranged from mediator to silent observer depending on his mood. That day he chose to fall back a step and just watch.

When his parents completed their invention, they’d made a very public announcement to the whole town and the rest of the ghost hunting community. Besides the fact that Danny was surprised there even _was_ a ghost hunting community, he would have preferred if his parents stayed silent about their most recent ambition. The idea of a ghost portal had been floating around the Fenton house for years;the product of some college experiment, but it wasn’t until a few months ago that his parents had truly thrown themselves into the project. In the past two weeks, Danny could only recall seeing his parents once or twice outside their basement lab.

Danny didn’t mind, for the most part. His parents were frequently occupied with their inventions, and his older sister often took on a parental role in his life. As much as he hated her nagging, he and his sister were fairly close and it was nice having someone to turn to for advice. Danny knew he could always go to his parents, but one way or another the conversation always turned to ghosts. He tried not to hold it against his parents, but sometimes there work consumed them, and it seemed like it was just Danny and Jazz against a Fenton-hating world.

“I’m just saying, high school is when we need to start learning about responsibility,” Sam said, drawing Danny back into the conversation. She looked Tucker up and down and grimaced pointedly. “Some more than others.”

“Hey!” Tucker shouted in protest, looking affronted despite saying nothing else to defend himself.

All three of them stopped walking when they reached the front stoop of a red brick building on the corner of the block. On top of the building was a large, U.F.O. shaped contraption that most likely violated a number of building codes. Not to mention the obnoxiously bright neon green and orange sign boasting “Fenton Works.” At midnight, it could light up the block like daytime. A number of complaints had been filed against the Fenton household over the years, but none of them were acted on.

Danny’s family wasn’t rich, but his parents did have some government connections.

“Dude, you sure you don’t want us to come with you?” Tucker asked.

Danny could see Tucker was excited, and was too ashamed to admit he was saving himself the embarrassment of another of his parents’ inventions failing miserably. “Nah, that’s okay. I’ll tell you guys how it goes.”

“If you say so. See you tomorrow.” Sam waved, and she and Tucker headed off alone, their spat resuming as they rounded the corner.

Danny stared after them a moment before sighing and trudging up the front steps. He slipped inside, trying to be as quiet as possible.

“Dann-O!”

He didn’t succeed.

“Hey, Dad.” Danny had been so close, one foot already on the stairs. He backed up and looked at his father in the kitchen. Jack Fenton was an impressively large man. While that would be enough to draw anyone’s attention, the dayglow orange jumpsuit held it.

Danny’s mother had a similar suit, but in a light shade of blue. He only saw his parents without them a couple times a year.

“Today’s the day! Once we do the final touches, you and your sister get to see paranormal history in the making!” Despite being only a few feet away from his son, Jack was practically shouting. A wide and exuberant grin was plastered across his face as he bounced on his heels, unable to contain his excitement.

“Uh, I can’t wait?” Danny said, the statement coming out more like a question. Nonetheless, his father’s smile grew. He grabbed a container—probably fudge—from the fridge and scampered down to the lab.

Danny groaned and trudged upstairs. He tossed his backpack on his computer chair and flopped onto his bed. He didn’t want to go to another weapon unveiling—there was a long history of security footage on the lab computer detailing why it wasn’t a good idea. But his parents wanted this portal to work more than anything. Sighing, Danny rolled onto his back and stared at the NASA poster taped to his ceiling, surrounded by glow in the dark stars making sloppy constellations.

Danny’s ‘more than anything’ was to be an astronaut, and his parents had always supported him on it. He couldn’t say no to this.

“Damn it.”

…

Two hours later, Danny left his room in search of his parents. He shoved his hands into his deep pockets and loped into the basement. The lab somehow succeeded in simultaneously being both sparkly clean and a cluttered mess. Half-made inventions and finished ones crowded the countertops, hanging out of open cabinets. But the surface underneath that clutter shone.

On the lab’s far wall, there was what could only be described as a hole. It was deep, with a large octagonal frame. There were wires snaking out of the opening, and bright stripes of blue light inside, converging on a silver disk at the back of the portal, with another light in the centre. Danny had to admit, it looked sort of cool. Like something from a high-budget sci-fi movie.

“Sweetie, you’re just in time!” Maddie, who had been doing some last minute welding on the frame, stood up and beamed at her son. She pulled down the hood of her jumpsuit, revealing short reddish-brown hair and lilac eyes.

“I don’t think this is healthy.”

Danny’s eyes were drawn to the corner of the room, where his sister was leaning against the wall. Jazz was two years older than Danny, a junior at Casper High though she could’ve graduated this year if she’d wanted to. She looked a lot like their mother, though her waist length hair was a much lighter red, and her eyes were more of a teal.

Danny, in comparison, was somewhere in between. He had his father’s black hair, but much clearer blue eyes. Other than that, his face shape and his slightly shorter than average stature were all his own.

“Oh, sweetie, you don’t mean that.” Maddie tutted, putting the welder back in its case.

“Yeah, I do. Danny’s in high school now, it’s a very harsh environment. He can be judged for any little thing. He doesn’t need to pick up any ghost talk and make it worse,” Jazz said.

“Thanks,” Danny muttered sarcastically.

“That won’t be a problem once this baby gets going!” Jack said, waving his arms “Over twenty years of work, and it’s finally finished! The Fenton Portal is going to change the world of ghost hunting as we know it.”

Jazz rolled her eyes, but walked forwards to stand next to Danny anyways.

“Are you ready, kids?” Maddie asked. Both elder Fentons looked like they were going to burst with excitement, all fidgeting limbs and tapping feet.

“I guess so,” Danny said, speaking for both of them.

“Ready, honey?” Maddie turned to her husband.

“You got it, baby!” Jack grabbed one of the extension cords from the floor, holding up the two unplugged ends and slamming them together “Banzai!”

For one glorious moment, the portal started to spark. Then there was a pop, a fizzle, and the lights flickered out.

For a moment, Jack and Maddie were frozen. Their expressions slowly morphed from excited to dejected.

“Oh.” Jack said, shoulders slumping as he dropped the cable. Maddie, equally as disappointed but not as willing to show it, put her hand on his shoulder.

“Come on, Jack. I’ll make you a bowl of ice cream. I need to make dinner for the kids.” Slowly, she lead him towards the stairs, pulling him like a deflated balloon.  They trudged out of the lab, leaving Jazz and Danny behind.

“I knew it wouldn’t work,” Jazz said, shrugging her shoulders and heading back upstairs.

Danny walked forwards, slowly approaching the gaping hole in the lab wall. He glanced at the closest table, which was covered in a number of detailed blueprints and pages of calculations. “Why didn’t it work?”

That night was both strangely quiet and infuriatingly normal, and it took awhile for him to fall asleep.

…

“So, what happened?” was the first thing Tucker asked the next day at school.

“It didn’t work,” Danny said.

“Dude, that sucks. What are your parents doing now?”

He shrugged. “Not really anything.” It had been a disturbing sight. When Danny woke up, he’d gone down to the kitchen to find his mother making breakfast in an abnormally clean kitchen sans her jumpsuit, and his father slumped at the table with his head in his hands, completely ignoring the food placed in front of him

“Hey, Fen _turd_. I heard another of your parents stupid inventions failed! No wonder you’re so bad at math, you get your brains from them!”

The first day of school, Dash Baxter had established himself as Casper High’s resident bully. He had been an okay guy in middle school, but over the summer he filled out, shot up a number of inches, and grew an arrogant attitude to go with it. He was a shoe-in for the football team, and already he was using that to his advantage. Football tryouts weren’t for another week but several teachers had let Dash’s bullying slide.

Dash shoved Danny’s shoulder as he walked by, sneering at the smaller teen.

Danny ducked his head to hide his burning cheeks, ashamed at himself for feeling ashamed at his parents. They were geniuses, but they just had to choose a living based around something that didn’t exist.

“That’s not how genetics work, Dash. Maybe you should open a textbook sometime,” Sam snapped. Dash glared at her, but he didn’t say anything back. It was his own form of twisted chivalry, he never bullied girls.

Plus Sam could be scary as hell if she wanted,  something that’d been established back in kindergarten.

Tucker grabbed Danny’s arm and pulled him back so Sam wouldn’t hear what they were saying. “Dude, maybe you should actually _try_ this year.”

Danny glared at him. “ _No_. I’m not going through that again.”

“But Danny, you _do_ take after your parents.”

“I don’t care, just lay off, Tuck.” Danny shook Tucker’s hand off, his glare melting away as Sam turned to face them.

The goth girl paused, looking between her two best friends. “What did I miss?”

“Danny being an idiot,” Tucker said.

“Oh. But that always happens.”

“Hey!”

Sam and Tucker laughed at Danny’s expense, but even he cracked a smile. He pretended he couldn’t feel Tucker watching him.

“So the portal didn’t work,” Sam said, crossing her arms. “But these are your parents we’re talking about. They’ll just go back to the drawing board and start again.”

Danny certainly hoped so.

…

His parents did not go back to the drawing board. In fact, for the rest of the school week, they didn’t go down to the lab once. Instead they spent their time sulking in the kitchen, Jack over a pan of fudge, and Maddie just mumbling about “twenty years of hard work” and cleaning obsessively.

Danny hated seeing them like that.

Jazz must have felt the same way despite her dislike for their profession, because she forced them out of the house on Saturday as she left for the library.

Knowing he only had a few hours alone, Danny quickly turned down Sam and Tucker’s offer to hang out, and headed into the lab. It wasn’t often that the Fenton household could be found empty. They weren’t a large family, but Fenton Works was operated out of their basement, so Maddie and Jack rarely needed to leave the house for work.

Danny stood in the middle of the lab, focusing on the eerie silence. Even without the temptation of the portal, he probably would have found himself down there. What better way to occupy a teenage mind than go the one place they shouldn’t?

Sure, he had homework he could be doing, but this was much more important. Danny grinned at the octagonal hole in the wall. His parents may have given up on it, but he didn’t want to. There were any number of things Jack and Maddie could have gotten wrong. Jack wasn’t as stupid as most people were led to believe, but he tended to miss the big picture and make simple mistakes in his calculations, especially when he was excited.

Danny checked over the console and gauges first, making sure all the numbers and energy levels matched blueprints. Everything seemed to be in order. He did one last review of the layout, and decided the problem must have been inside the machine.

He grabbed the jumpsuit his parents had made for him a few years back, just in case he decided to pursue a ghost hunting career. He caught his reflection on the portal’s metal frame and scowled. There was a large sticker of his father’s face slapped across his chest. Peeling the offending appendage off,  he stepped into the portal

Itwas deeper than he expected it to be, and the blue lights provided little illumination. There was a strict line between light and shadow, and Danny shivered as he crossed it. Clear rods filled with wires lined the portal walls, and more wires were littered about on the floor. They were in tangled heaps, and it wasn’t so hard to imagine them as a writhing mass.

Danny was taking care to avoid them, since the boots accompanying his jumpsuit were rather large, when something above caught his attention.

There were some loose wires dangling from the ceiling, begging for his eyes. The protective sealing had been stripped away on the last inch. Danny was staring at them, wondering if they could be the problem, when he took a step forwards and tripped. He quickly looked down to see a bright green wire caught around his ankle as he started to fall. In a moment of panic, Danny’s arm lashed out against the wall, searching for support. He found it, for a moment. Then something beneath his palm gave with a sharp click, and he tumbled to the floor.

Danny’s attention was caught by the green button—the same colour as the wire—he had just pressed. On the panel beside it was an identical red one.

A low whirring started up, and Danny ripped his gaze from the buttons. Green electricity crackled along the wire in the clear tubes, and the glow it produced grew.

_Run_. That was the only thing Danny could think. Just run. He scrambled to his feet, but he was moving too slowly. His hands had gotten tangled in the mess of wires on the floor, and stray ends were snagging his suit. The glow was building, the whirring getting louder, _and he wasn’t moving fast enough_.

In reality it all happened in an instant, but to Danny it felt like an eternity. The dangling wires above his head crackled, then his world became nothing but green light and pain.


	2. The Colour Green

As the energy coursed through Danny’s body, he wished that he was dead, or at the very least unconscious. Neither happened. Instead, he got to feel every moment of excruciating, burning, white-hot pain.

But in the back of his mind, Danny was glad. Glad that it was him, not Jazz, or his mom, or dad that this was happening to. Even as the smell of ozone and burning flesh took over his senses, he knew that he had _saved them_ from feeling this.

He wasn’t sure when it finally stopped. Everything was swirling green and white and black around him, a blinding combination. Slowly, he drifted out of the portal, knees thudding against the lab floor. With no one to catch him, Danny toppled, falling on his face. He could barely keep his eyes open, but he thought there was something very wrong with his reflection in the tiled floor. Something about his hair; it was too light.

Danny didn’t get a chance to dwell on it as a cool sensation washed over him, and everything went black.

…

“ _I don’t understand._ ”

“ **I’m sure you don’t. This must be very confusing for you**.”

“ _Why me?_ ”

“ **Because we need you**.”

“ _It doesn’t make any sense._ ”

“ **It will, in time. But we need you to remember. Remember this when it hurts**.”

…

Danny woke up on the floor of the lab, his cheek pressed against the cold tile. Judging by the soreness, he would have quite the bruise. He lay there for a moment, trying to breath in deeply only to be met with  sharp pain in his chest every time he succeeded. He was only somewhat aware of how the rest of his body ached, dampened by the strange feelings in his limbs - pins and needles, like when his foot fell asleep in class.

The first thing he noticed—beyond his aches and pains—was the hum. Danny couldn’t quite figure out where it was coming from, but there was something… alluring about it. As he started peeling himself off the floor he heard something upstairs. The sound of a door opening and loud footsteps against tile.

“I’m just saying you shouldn’t force this ghost hunting business on him!” Jazz’s voice echoed through the house. She may have taken after their mother in more ways than one, but she had their father’s voluminous voice. “You should at least go down into the lab and clean up or something. Maybe you’ll remember what you missed.”

Danny had made it onto his hands and knees when there was a loud gasp. He hadn’t heard them coming down the stairs

“Danny!” His mother, who had reached the bottom of the stairs first, rushed forwards and grabbed Danny’s shoulders, pulling him up. He winced and started to jerk away, which only made Maddie’s grip tighten, and he let out a brief cry of pain. “What happened?”

“Um…” Danny blinked. His vision was still swimming. There were two, no three, of his mother swaying before his eyes. He shook his head and groaned, resisting the urge to vomit.

“Maddie, look!”

Danny’s head lolled to the side as he looked at Jack, who was pointing to the back wall. Danny glanced over his shoulder to see the portal, which had just been a gaping hole minutes ago, was filled with a swirling green vortex.

Watching it made Danny shiver. Not in an ominous sort of way, but in a primal, craving way. He wanted to go to it, wanted to feel the foreign air on his skin He leaned away from his mother in response but she just pulled him closer, grip tightening

“Danny, what did you do?” she asked, taking in his singed and shredded jumpsuit.

“I—” Danny gasped and hunched over as he felt a sudden flare of pain radiating from his chest. He ground his teeth, trying to force himself through it. Distantly, he could hear his family calling out to him. Their voices blurred together, and he passed out again.

…

The next time Danny opened his eyes, it was to bright hospital lights.

His first conscious thought was that fluorescent was a really unfortunate way to go for a building dedicated to treating sick people. His second was that doctors and nurses probably needed the bright light in case there was an emergency. He couldn’t remember why he was there. Something big had happened, he knew that much, but he-

“Danny?” Jazz had been resting her arms against his legs, but felt Danny shift when he awoke. She stood up and leaned over him. “How do you feel?”

Danny tried to speak, but his throat was too dry and rough.

“Hold on.” Jazz turned away, and Danny struggled to sit up. He glanced around the room. There were three chairs around his bed, but his parents weren’t there. He couldn’t see a clock, so he didn’t know what time it was.

Jazz returned with a small cup of water and Danny’s hand shook slightly when he took it. He managed to bring it to his lips and take a few careful sips before answering her question. “Sore. Confused.”

Jazz smiled. “I would think so. You’ve been unconscious for three days. We weren’t sure when you were going to wake up.”

Danny almost spit up the water her had been drinking. “Three days?!” At the most, he assumed it had been a couple hours.

“I texted mom and dad, they just went down to the cafeteria. We were really worried about you, little brother.” Jazz didn’t try to hug him, which Danny was thankful for, but she laid a hand on his arm and gave him a relieved smile. “I’m going to find your doctor.”

He simply stared at her until she pulled away. Her fingers left a strange, crawling sensation on his skin.

Just as Jazz left the room, Maddie and Jack arrived.

“Danny-boy!” Jack practically fell across Danny’s bed, enveloping his son in a bone-crushing hug.

“Dad, too tight!” Danny gasped as the pain of the embrace shot through his sore muscles, breathing a sigh of relief when he was released.

“Sweetie, what were you doing in the lab without our supervision? And what did you do to the portal?” Maddie asked, sitting on the end of the bed.

Danny looked at her. “The portal?”

“Yes, it’s working!” Maddie and Jack were beaming proudly.

Danny’s memories came rushing back to him. He’d gone inside to see what was wrong. There was a wire, a button, and more pain than he’d ever experienced in his life. And there was a lot of green. Danny scowled. He really hated green.

“I just, uh, fixed a loose wire? And sort of got a little shock?” he offered as a way of explanation. It was a poor lie, but apparently good enough. Jazz might have commented on it if she were still in the room, but Maddie and Jack were too happy over his waking—and their fully functioning portal—to think too much on it.

“Sam and Tucker visited after school yesterday,” Maddie said. “Sam brought some notes for you.”

Danny groaned.

“Honey, are you okay?” Maddie asked, her voice laced with worry.

“Yeah, just… school,” Danny explained, and his mother smiled.

Jazz came back with the doctor a couple steps behind, who performed a quick examination.

“Any pain?” he asked when he was finished.

Danny shrugged his shoulder, which still ached, trying to ignore the stabbing pain from his headache, which worsened as he moved. “Yeah, some.”

“I’ll write you a prescription. Your injuries were minor, and they’re healing nicely. Our only concern was when you would wake up. I’ve cleared you to leave, but make sure you come back in two weeks for a follow up. If you have any concerns before then, feel free to call or stop by our clinic.”

Within the hour Danny had obtained his prescription—getting it filled by the pharmacy on the first floor—was discharged, and back home lying comfortably in his bed. The doctor had given a last minute suggestion of bed rest, so Danny’s parents said he could stay home the rest of the week. Jazz would have to go back, which Danny laughed at for a good ten minutes.

He tried to weasel his way into getting an extra couple days off, and his parents said they would wait and see. Which was code for “The doctor said you’re okay, so you’re going back to school on Monday.”

But Danny felt strange. The only way he could think of describing it was like something was missing. He’d tried explaining it to Jazz on the ride home, but she just gave him an odd look and asked if whatever happened has scrambled his brains too. He couldn’t answer that.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have been discharged yet,” Jazz said, her eyebrows drawn together with worry. She reached out and brushed her thumb against his temple, though Danny barely felt it. He was too distracted by the noise. As soon as he stepped out of the car, he could hear the humming again.  Deep and strong. He felt it in his bones.

He tried his best to ignore it.

At the moment, Danny had his laptop resting on his knees and was watching the clock, waiting for when Sam and Tucker got home so he could talk to them. He didn’t text them earlier because he wanted it to be a surprise.

He kept glancing at their user names in the corner of his screen, and the two small red circles beside them. The moment they turned green—why did it have to be green?—he clicked the button for a three way video chat.

An icon of an old landline popped onto his screen, and the receiver shook as the call was made. It only took a few seconds for Sam and Tucker to answer.

“Dude, you’re alive!” Tucker cheered as soon as his window opened.

“Are you okay, what happened?” Sam asked. “Your mom said you collapsed.”

“I may have been messing with some stuff I shouldn't have in the lab and gotten shocked,” Danny explained. It was the understatement of the year, and even as he said it his shoulder twitched at the memory of the sensation. “But I got the portal to work.”

“Really? Did any ghosts come out?” Tucker asked.

“I mean, it's on.” Danny shrugged. “So that means it works, right?”

“It does something.” Sam frowned. “What did you do?”

“I’ll… talk to you guys about it Monday, that's when I go back to school. I'm supposed to be asleep right now, but I wanted to let you know I'm okay,” he said. “I’ll text you tomorrow.”

“Totally, dude. Cool scar, by the way. If you have a good story, maybe it'll get you a date,” Tucker said before signing off.

“Scar?” Danny asked.

Sam hummed. “I don't know. I don't think someone like Paulina,” she spat the name, “would appreciate it.”

“What scar?” Danny shouted at Sam, but she was already gone.

Danny hadn't thought to take in his appearance once since waking up. But now that his friends mentioned it, Danny jumped from his bed, ignoring the wave of dizziness it brought, and stumbled into his bathroom. He leaned over the sink and stared at his reflection. Like he originally thought, there was an ugly bruise on his cheek, brown and yellow now that it was a few days old. But the scar was what drew his attention.

It was a pale red and started under his hairline. Shaped like a forked bolt of lightning, it snaked down his temple and touched his cheekbone and jaw. It wasn't very big, but it was interesting.

Curious, Danny pulled his shirt off his head and looked at his right shoulder. There was a similar mark that stretched down his back, with several more branches, before tapering off as it reached his waist.

Something about it looked familiar. Not the exact scar, but the shape of it. Danny put his shirt back and on and went to his laptop, typing in ‘lightning scar.’

It was called a Lichtenberg figure, and only remained on the skin for a number of days. It was most often the result of someone being struck by lightning. Danny’s eyes widened. Could the portal have been that powerful?

But there was bigger question. If it was, and the electricity had flowed through Danny’s head, how was he alive?

...

The next morning Danny rolled out of bed and made his way downstairs. He trudged into the kitchen, dropping onto a seat, and let his head thud against the table.

“Danny, why are you up?” Jazz asked. She was sitting across from him, fully dressed, and finishing her breakfast.

“Habit?” Danny said. In truth, he hadn't slept at all last night. He had been exhausted, but his mind reeled.

He should be dead.

He did research on lightning strikes. There were lots of survivors, one guy had even been struck seven times before his death. It was possible to survive a strike to the head, with protective gear, and coming out the other end with some kind of neurological damage. Danny had no protection, besides his jumpsuit which obviously did little to help, and he had no lasting damage from what he could tell.

Danny look at it from every angle, but with the amount of energy the portal emitted, he couldn’t have survived. At the very least he should be a vegetable. But he was virtually fine. A couple aches and pains, but the meds would take care of those for the next couple days until they went away.

After his research Danny _tried_ to catch a couple hours’ worth of sleep while he could. But he was plagued by sensations of electricity coursing through his veins, and images of his parents hunting him down for being a ghost. But he wasn't a ghost, because he was alive. In the dream, they hadn’t believed him.

Danny had laid awake, shaking, staring at the glow in the dark stars on his ceiling.

“You look terrible, go back to sleep”

If only he could.

“If you say so,” Danny muttered.

He would just stay upstairs long enough for Jazz to leave, so she wouldn't pester him about it. He wanted to head downstairs later and take a look at the portal. If he was lucky, he could slip into the lab without-

Danny was halfway up the stairs when he fell. Maybe he was too tired, maybe he hadn't lifted his foot high enough, or only his toes touched the step. Either way Danny found himself falling forwards. His chin bounced against the next stair and he slid down. He didn't get hurt, but he sat on the floor and stared up in confusion, trying to figure out what happened.

“Danny?” Jazz asked, leaning out of the kitchen doorway.

“I'm okay,” Danny said. “I just tripped.”

“Okay. I'm going to school now. Mom and Dad are in the lab, doing who knows what with the portal. If you need something, text me.”

“Sure.” Danny nodded, still scrutinizing the step he had missed. He could have sworn he felt it beneath his foot, his whole foot, before he suddenly couldn't. He climbed back up to it and cautiously placed his foot down. It was perfectly solid.

He must have been more tired than he thought. Danny shook his head. He could at least _try_ to sleep. Maybe now that he was exhausted beyond reason, he wouldn't have any nightmares. Hopefully, once he woke up, proper physics would have returned to the world.

...

Danny’s incident on the stairs was not the only strange thing to happen to him. By Friday he had tripped a record breaking number of times each day, and things just seemed to slip out of his hands. He was blaming it on muscle spasms from the electricity, ignoring the fact that it shouldn’t be happening so many days after the accident.

But that wasn’t even the strangest thing.

A little less than an hour ago, Danny decided humming was too simple of a word to describe what he was hearing. It was more of an ominous, wailing song. One that constantly called to him. And, apparently, _only_ to him.

“How can you concentrate?” Danny asked, staring at Jazz. They were in the living room, Danny trying to watch TV, and Jazz reading a psychology textbook. But he couldn’t hear his show over the strange noise unless he turned the volume way up, something Jazz had already hissed at him sharply not to do.

“Because I know how to focus on what’s important,” Jazz answered without missing a beat. She turned to the next page and smirked in Danny’s direction.

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” Danny said. He crossed his arms and pouted at his sister.

“Um, no, I don’t.” Jazz shook her head. “Why shouldn’t I be able to concentrate?”

“That… that noise!” Danny waved his arms, gesturing at the air. “I mean, it’s been _days_ , how am I the only one annoyed by this?”

“Because there is no this.” Jazz closed her book and leaned across the couch, staring at Danny intently. “Danny, there’s no noise.”

“What?”

“I don’t hear anything,” she said. “Are you sure you’re alright? Maybe this experience was more traumatic than we realize, you could be experiencing serious mental side effects.”

“What? No, I’m fine! You don’t need to analyze me, Jazz. I was just kidding.” Danny rolled his eyes and grinned like he had just pulled off the greatest joke of all time. Jazz frowned, unsatisfied with his answer. But before she could push him any further, Danny stretched and yawned. “You know, I’m feeling kind of tired. I’m just gonna go to bed.”

He stood up and headed upstairs, while Jazz glanced at the clock on the wall. “But… it’s only four?”

In his room Danny paced back and forth. Maybe the portal _had_ done something to his head. Maybe he was actually in a coma, and this was just some weird, mundane dream where the only thing out of place was that _stupid_ noise, thrumming with power and _electricity_.

Danny froze when he felt a sort of hot, crackling sensation ghost down his back. Before he could look around to find the source of the sensation, he dropped to his knees as his whole body convulsed. The pain was hot, and sharp, and electric as Danny toppled onto his side, shaking and grinding his teeth together to avoid shouting in pain. His eyes open wide, but he couldn’t see his bedroom. A green haze was clouding his vision.

It writhed and swirled like it had a mind of its own, stretching on forever before Danny’s eyes. He could almost see something in the distance, dark specks floating in the expanse, but the pain was too distracting.

Then, suddenly, it was all gone. Danny was in his room, no vast swirlingexpanse, no pain. Just him, on the floor, trembling and gasping for air. He lay there for a couple minutes before slowly pushing himself to his knees. His palms were sweaty and he curled his fingers inwards, nails dragging through his bedroom carpet.

He heard soft footsteps outside his room, Jazz climbing the stairs. Danny stiffened, knowing she was coming for his room. She must have heard him.

There was a light knock on his door. “Danny? Are you okay?”

“Y-” Danny’s voice croaked, and he swallowed thickly. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

 _Don’t come in, don’t see me, don’t see me!_ A cold feeling washed over Danny, but it wasn’t painful, so he didn’t think about it too much. He was too worried about Jazz, his gaze focused on the door.

“If you say so, little brother.”

Danny waited until he heard Jazz’s retreating footsteps before he relaxed, letting out a relieved breath. He leaned back and glanced down at his knees. It took him a moment to notice it, but there was something off. He could see the carpet through his jeans.

Muffling his shout of surprise, Danny scrambled towards his bathroom and stood in front of the mirror—only there was no reflection.

“Ah!” He yelped and stumbled back, tripping over his garbage can and tumbling to the floor. As soon as he recovered, Danny pulled himself up and peered over the counter. His own clear blue eyes stared back at him. He stood up, reassuring himself that his whole reflection was there.

It must have been nothing. He was frazzled. There were dark rings under his eyes, almost the same unhealthy shade as his bruise. Coupled with his pale skin and the bright red scar, he looked like death.

“I just need some sleep,” Danny said to himself. He ran a hand through his hair as he stared away from the mirror, panting slightly. He stumbled into his bedroom and crawled into bed, trying to convince himself none of it was real. His mind was just playing tricks on him.

The tripping, the dropping things, it was all just because of the accident, that’s it. But Danny couldn’t deny what he saw, or didn’t see, in the mirror.

_What’s wrong with me?_

…

Danny didn't tell his parents, Jazz, or even his friends what was happening, and he wasn't sure if he should. He was missing something, he knew it. There was a hollow feeling in his chest that only continued to grow.

Tired of everything that was happening, and wanting to get to the bottom of it, Danny once again waited for a moment the house would be empty so he could sneak into the lab.

Maddie and Jack had placed a firm verbal ruling that no one could enter the lab without their permission after his accident, but he figured that they probably should have done more if they were truly that concerned. Come Friday afternoon Jazz was at school, Maddie was visiting a friend, and Jack was grocery shopping, which freed up the lab for all kinds of havoc.

Not that Danny necessarily _wanted_ to cause havoc, but it would not be unexpected.

He entered the prohibited space with more caution this time, keeping his eyes downcast when he reached the bottom step. He swivelled, counting his steps as he walked forwards, and stopped when the low hum of the portal grew.

Finally, Danny looked up.

It was easy to lose oneself staring into the portal. At first it looked like a swirling green wall, then it became a rippling whirlpool sucking Danny in, then a gaseous murk that could be holding all kinds of nasty surprises. It shifted between the states of matter without any recognizable pattern or reasoning, though Danny found it moved faster when he stared at its center.

It seemed to stretch on forever behind its frame, but Danny was certain if he stretched his hand out, he would touch… something. Not solid, liquid, or gas, but something else entirely. Something ghostly.

He stepped forwards, ignorant of the way his foot hovered a good three inches off the ground when he set it down. Instead he took another step, rose another three inches, and another and another until he was a foot off the ground.

Danny’s breath hitched as the portal seemed to reach out to him, wispy green tendrils begging him closer. But he hesitated, leaning back instead of forwards, and suddenly the illusion was gone. Danny’s gaze snapped to the ground, and he yelped in surprise when he saw it wasn’t directly under his feet. He reeled, lost his balance, and fell—something he had been doing a lot lately.

Danny gaped at his feet, trying to think of some logical explanation for what just happened. He couldn’t. All he knew was that it must have been the portal’s fault.


	3. Out of Touch

Danny was not a narcissistic person, never had been. He wasn’t one of those people that enjoyed taking selfies or staring at themselves in the mirror. He did not admire his appearance, and he rarely did anything to enhance it. But, like all teenagers, he had worries about his looks. Just not the same ones, at least not anymore.

Come Saturday morning, Danny was standing in the middle of his bathroom, white knuckled hands gripping the edge of his countertop, eyes fixed on his reflection. It felt like he hadn’t blinked in minutes, but he couldn’t. He knew, he just _knew_ , that if he did, he would suddenly disappear.

Last night Danny’s first attempts at sleep had been plagued with nightmares. After an hour of tossing and turning in his bed, trying and failing to relax enough to fall back asleep, he gave up. Instead, he spent the rest of the night torn between the desire for all of this to be a strange coma dream, and the desire for him _not_ to be in a coma. He had yet to decide which was worse.

After the sun rose, Danny planted himself in his bathroom, and refused to turn away from the mirror. He needed to know if this was real, but simply seeing his reflection was enough.

The numbness of his hands from holding the counter too tightly, the soreness of his heels from refusing to move or sit down, the way his eyes stung and watered, the way his stomach grumbled. Those little aches and pains, they were the only thing convincing him he was awake and alive.

But they could not convince him he was normal.

Since his little moment with the portal the previous day, Danny had come to a terrifying conclusion. The portal had done something to him. Something indescribable.

In the back of his mind, Danny still didn’t believe the portal really worked. The idea was so farfetched.  It sounded like something out of a science-fiction novel—a gateway to another dimension, the realm of ghosts or whatever.  Maybe he hadn’t made it out of the accident completely unscathed. If the electricity did flow through his brain, it could trigger hallucinations and interfere with muscle control, which would explain everything.

But something in him, a horrible sinking feeling in his gut, told him that this wasn’t the case. That whether this dimension existed or not, the portal had to lead somewhere. And that part of him was almost sure that, for a brief moment in time, Danny had been in that somewhere.

What if it had changed him?

 

Danny’s eye started to twitch as he stared at the mirror. He couldn't take it, he had to blink. He took a deep breath, sucking in air until his lungs ached. When he couldn't take it anymore, he blinked.

The reflection was still there. _He_ was still there.

Feeling somewhat reassured, Danny allowed himself a second, slower blink. Each time he opened his eyes to find his reflection unchanged, a weight was lifted from Danny’s chest.

He had been tired, that was it. The accident, plus his nightmares, had rattled his brains.

Danny slumped forwards as some of his unease faded. He allowed his grip on the counter to lessen and shuffled his sore feet.

“It’s okay,” he murmured, staring at his feet. “It's okay, I’m normal. I’m okay.”

He continued to mutter quiet reassurances to himself until his mother called for him.

“What?” Danny shouted, leaning out of his bedroom door.

“Sam and Tucker are here!” Maddie shouted back.

Danny frowned. They had made plans to meet up on Monday. He wasn't expecting to see them until then. Unless…

He glanced towards his phone, abandoned face down on his bed. He turned it over and skimmed the cascade of notifications. Sam and Tucker had been texting him for the last hour, making plans for lunch. Their most recent messages said they would kidnap him if he didn't answer soon. That had been twenty minutes ago.

Danny smirked, glad that some things—most things—were normal. With one glance towards his bedroom mirror, he headed downstairs.

“Hey, guys,” he said when he reached the front door, a genuine smile slipping onto his face. Who was he kidding? There was no way he would have made it to Monday without seeing friends, not unless he wanted to walk into school a nervous, trembling mess.

Tucker was shoving one of his many PDAs in his pocket while Sam was already smiling at Danny. Her eyes flitted back and forth across his face, taking in the bags under his eyes, the jagged scar trailing down his face, and the pallor of his skin. He looked much worse in person. Her smile slipped a little, worry clouding her gaze.

When Tucker finally looked up, he gaped openly. “Dude…”

Danny chuckled nervously, feeling more than a little uncomfortable. He shuffled his feet on the wooden floor and looked anywhere but at his friends. He briefly caught his gaze in the front hall mirror—his reflection was still there, good—and ducked his head.

“Yeah, I know, I kind of…” Danny trailed off and gave a half-hearted shrug of his shoulders.

“Look like crap?” Sam finished for him. She leaned forwards and tilted her head to peer under Danny’s bangs, an action that Danny absolutely did not find somewhat cute, and he swore was not the cause for his blushing.

He shrugged again and stuffed his hands in his pockets. He was with his friends, not even out of the house yet. He shouldn't have felt like he has to hide. But he did. In that moment, Danny wished he was far, _far_ away from anywhere.

“What? No. I mean, yeah, you look terrible, but no,” Tucker said, shaking his head. “Your scar, what happened to it? It looks lighter.”

Danny blinked and looked up. Sam was no longer crowding him, though Tucker had taken a step forwards. The techno-geek was staring intently at the right side of Danny’s face.

Danny plucked at a loose thread inside one of his pockets, twisting around his finger until it bit into his skin. His feeling of discomfort only grew.

“Lichtenberg figures fade pretty quickly,” Danny answered.

Tucker frowned. “Lich-what?”

“Forget about the stupid scar.” Sam elbowed Tucker. “How do you feel?”

“I’m good.” Danny didn't meet Sam’s gaze as he lied.

“Good enough for a Nasty burger?” Tucker asked.

Danny smiled gratefully, some of the tension leaving his shoulders. That was exactly the kind of distraction he needed. “Definitely, let’s go.”

...

The Nasty Burger was Amity Park’s local fast food joint and the hangout for most teenagers. There were a number of rumours about how the place got its name. The most common was that it used to be Tasty Burger, and someone vandalized the sign to say ‘Nasty’ instead, and the name stuck. But Danny’s favourite rumour was that a number of people were appalled with the restaurant when it opened, and thought the food was disgusting, so the owner changed the name just to spite them.

Danny’s favourite part of any given day was when he, Sam, and Tucker were released from school or home and stole away to their favourite booth. The summer before eighth grade, they had carved their names into the underside of the table to officially stake their claim, though they had monopolized the booth for years before that.

However, that day, Danny decided going to the Nasty Burger was a bad idea. It was unfortunate he only realized this _after_ he left.

It started as a nervous flutter in the pit of his stomach. Butterflies, like his mother would say. But as they got closer to Nasty Burger, it grew, and Danny felt nauseous by the time they reached the door. He hesitated as his friends stepped inside.

Tucker and Sam paused when they noticed he was no longer following them.

“Dude, you coming?” Tucker asked. He looked Danny up and down, a light frown on his face.

Danny swallowed thickly and nodded. His friends wanted to go, he wasn't just going to bail on them and ruin their plans.

“Yeah,” he said, and crossed the threshold.

The staring didn't start immediately. After all, there was nothing unusual about the ‘freak trio’ walking into the Nasty Burger, even on a Saturday morning. At least until they remembered a certain blue-eyed, black-haired boy had been in an accident recently—and rumours were flying around town about the exact nature of the incident, and how horribly disfigured Danny was because of it.

Amity Park was just big enough to be classified as a city. It had an airport, a mall, a park—obviously—and a smattering of schools. But it still had that small town feel to it, which included a city-wide rumour mill that ran at full power. The Fentons were the infamous town crazies. Everyone knew who they were, which meant everyone knew their son had gotten himself stuck in the hospital after messing with one of their machines.

By the time the trio approached the counter, Tucker eager to trying the newest Nasty confection, most of the restaurant patrons were watching them. Danny noticed first, their stares like pinpricks on the back of his neck. He looked over his shoulder, displaying his scar for all to see, then whipped his head forwards as he accidentally made eye contact with a curious classmate.

He leaned forwards and tapped Tucker’s shoulder. “I'm going to grab our seat,” Danny said. He didn't wait for Tucker’s response, instead striding quickly across the tiles floor and sliding into the corner booth. He hid the right side of his face behind his hand and sunk down in the seat.

Tucker said the scar had faded, but just barely so. To anyone who hadn't seen it fresh, it was an angry mark against Danny’s pasty skin. A reminder of his recent accident and, to some, a testament towards his parents’ ill-practiced safety precautions.

Most people returned to their meals when Danny’s head dipped below the top of the seat, and that's when the whispering started.

“Did you see that?”

“That scar was huge! What did he _do_?”

“I hear the food at their place comes to life! Seriously, remember the Christmas turkey a few years ago?”

“That's so messed up.”

“I bet it was his parents. Who knows what kind of crazy experiments they perform on their kids.”

“Tucker, I don't think he’s alright.”

Danny sat up straight and turned around, glaring at the restaurant at large. “It's kind of rude to talk about people behind their backs!”

He regretted speaking immediately as everyone’s gaze settled on him again. Sam and Tucker, still waiting in line across the restaurant, looked at him with a mixture of guilt and awe.

Danny ducked out of sight as soon as possible, and the whispers started again, albeit a little quieter this time. It didn't matter, he could still hear them all.

As Sam and Tucker ordered their food, Danny covered his ears and refused to meet anyone’s gaze. He only looked up when two trays were set down on the table. Tucker slid into the opposite seat while Sam nudged Danny towards the window. She leaned forwards so the people seated along the wall couldn’t see him as clearly, and he was extremely grateful.

He drew his hands away from his head and lay them flat on the table. The cool formica was soothing against his clammy palms.

“We could have just gotten it to go,” Tucker said, scanning the restaurant.

Danny watched the glare of the bright lights streak across Tucker’s glasses, then quickly looked away when he could see the green irises beneath.

He didn't answer, but mumbled a quiet thanks when Tucker took one of the burgers off his tray and pushed it across the table, along with a carton of fries. Danny carefully unwrapped the burger and flattened the paper our, dumping some of the fries onto the corner.

Sam and Tucker started eating, glancing up every now and then at Danny or each other.  Neither one seemed willing to speak first, until the sound of ripping was mixed in with their chewing. Danny had torn a long strip off his burger wrapper and was now shredding it into smaller and smaller pieces. The burger itself lay untouched.

Sam shoved her tray into Tucker’s, and the techno-geek looked away from the growing pile of pale yellow confetti. She raised an eyebrow and jerked her head towards Danny. Tucker shook his head and pointed a fry back at her. Sam rolled her eyes and shrugged, while Tucker waggled his eyebrows.

Under the table, the steel toe of one of her combat boots prodded his shin.

“Nothing interesting ever happens here,” Tucker said, breaking the silence.

Sam shook her head and stabbed a piece of lettuce, rolling her eyes and Tucker’s lame topic.

“I mean, everyone at school has been eating up the story,” Tucker continued.

Danny dropped the final bits of paper and sighed. The nausea hadn't faded at all in the past ten minutes. “That's what I was afraid of.”

Tucker’s eyes widened and he sent a pleading look at Sam. She kicked him under the table and spoke over his yelp of pain. “They’ll forget about it soon enough. Football tryouts are happening on Tuesday, no one will even care by then.”

“But what happened, anyways?” Tucker asked. He was rubbing his sore shin and shooting the occasional glare at Sam. “You said you’d tell us Monday, but now is as good a time as any.”

Danny squirmed in his seat. It suddenly my dawned on him that he’d had no intention of telling his friends what had happened. Not even Tucker, and they told each other everything. He wouldn't keep it secret forever, just until he figured out what was actually going on.

“I, uh, I wanted to check the portal out. Even if it didn't work, it was still kind of cool,” Danny explained. He tapped his fingers against his leg, trying to mask the slight twitch. “So I went down there, and I noticed a couple wires weren’t connected right. I fixed it up and plugged it in, but I got a little shock when I did it.”

Danny’s hand spasmed, and he pressed his fist against his thigh.

“How did you notice the wires weren’t right?” Sam asked. Her elbows were resting on the table, chin cradled on her interlaced fingers. She was watching Danny intently, eyes half-lidded.

It made him uncomfortable for a completely different reason.

“Um, from the blueprints.”

“Wait, were you _trying_ to fix it?” Tucker was leaning forwards now too, a shit-eating grin on his face.

“Yeah.” Danny nodded.

“Wow, Danny.” Sam blinked and leaned back. “I didn't know you could do that.”

“Actually, Danny’s kind of a gen­- _ow_. Unnecessary!” Tucker jerked his legs up onto his bench as Danny tried to kick him.

“I was just lucky, I guess.” Danny shrugged, frowning at the table.

Yeah, ‘lucky’.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” Tucker asked, eyeing the untouched food.

Danny shifted his gaze to the unwrapped burger sitting primly on the tabletop. Sam and Tucker had been eating steadily since they sat down and were now halfway through their meals.

He didn't feel like eating, but felt guilty since Tucker had bought it for him. Danny nodded slowly and picked up one of the fries. It was a little cold now, but it would still be good. The fry was inches from his lips when his hand spasmed again and it fell from his grasp. Or that’s what Danny would have thought, if he didn’t watch it happen.

His fingers twitched, curling inwards and crushing the fry. Then the tips of his fingers turned a translucent, pale blue, which spread to the rest of his hand and halfway down his arm. It was accompanied by a tingling sensation until the whole limb went numb, the squashed fry slipping _through_ his hand to drop onto the table.

Danny gaped at the display. That couldn’t be his arm, he refused to believe it. He couldn’t even feel it. But when he thought of moving it, it moved, right through the table and out of view. He struggled to pull his gaze away as the limb returned to normal, feeling warm and tingly.

He glanced at his friends to check if they had seen anything. Sam was busy picking through her salad and Tucker had his eyes closed as he savoured a bite of his burger. They were oblivious to what just happened, if it really _had_ happened. Danny still wasn’t convinced any if this was real.

He ran a hand through his hair. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been this frazzled. He was so confused. Nothing felt real. In fact, it felt like Danny was very far away. But the wood of the booth was smooth beneath his fingers, the floor solid under his sneakers, and the incessant chattering of the other patrons grated on his every nerve, so it had to be real, right?

The cornered feeling grew. He had to get away.

“Sorry, guys, I- I have to go,” Danny said, stumbling over his words. He nodded to Sam and she slid out of the booth, but watched him with a quizzical brow raised.

Danny couldn’t seem to stop shaking as he pulled himself forwards and just barely managed to stand up straight. He couldn’t remember the last time he had gone a week without hanging out with Sam or Tucker, especially Tucker It was usually the one thing he looked forward to. But not twenty minutes in he was fleeing from them because of his own problems. He felt a stab of guilt that only made his nausea worse.

“Dude, we just got here,” Tucker protested.

The guilt twisted like a sharp knife. “I’m just... I’m not feeling well. I’ll see you on Monday.” Danny gave them a withered smile before turning and fleeing the building, leaving behind his untouched meal.

…

Danny didn’t stop running until he reached his block, a good twenty minutes away on his scooter. He was winded, but not as much as he should have been. Shorter than average and lacking any kind of real muscle, Danny always did poorly in gym, especially track. He and Tucker were usually dead last.

Now Danny stood on the front steps of Fenton Works, hunched over as his lungs burned and his feet ached. The pain grounded him, and he waited until his breathing was back under control before walking inside.

The nausea had faded the further he got from the Nasty Burger, his friends, and any curious eyes.

On the way to his room, Danny paused and glanced through the open lab door. He could hear his parents in the basement, tinkering away with their weapons and whatnot. He closed his eyes and just listened.

The lab was made to be sound proof, so most minor noises were lost before they reached the doorway. As Danny stood at the top of the stairs, he could hear the light clinking of bolts bouncing against the countertop, metal scraping softly against metal, and the sputtering buzz of a welder. Far different from the usual bangs and crashes he associated with his parents’ work, mostly because those were the only sounds loud enough to drift upstairs.

Just like at the restaurant, Danny was hearing things he shouldn’t have been able to.

“Danny, honey, is that you?”

Danny’s eyes snapped open and he looked downstairs. Maddie was poking her head into the stairwell.

“Yeah, it’s me,” Danny answered. He hated the way his voice shook.

“That was fast, is everything alright?” With her hood pulled up and bright orange goggles over her eyes, the thin pout on Maddie’s lips made her look like a concerned bug.

_Why does everyone have to keep asking that?_

“I’m fine, just a little tired,” he called back.

“Okay, sweetie. Go get some rest. I’ll bring you some food after lunch.”

Danny cringed, remembering the last time Maddie had tried cooking anything. The casserole ate her oven mitt as she tried to place it on a cooling rack. “That’s okay, I’m not really hungry. I ate at the Nasty Burger.”

He ignored his rumbling stomach as he climbed the stairs. Jazz’s bedroom door was open when he reached the landing. She was sitting at her desk, long hair draped over one shoulder, as she read her book. Unaware that she wasn’t alone, she tilted her head up and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. It was the one thing Danny could call childish about his older sister, besides the stuffed Bearbert Einstein sitting on her bed.

Jazz blinked, wiping a tear from her eye, and her gaze drifted into the hall. She hadn’t been looking for anything, but smiled when she saw Danny. “Hey, little brother.”

Danny froze like a deer in the headlights. He glanced between Jazz’s room and his own. Whenever there was something he couldn’t talk to his friends about—until now that had been a very short list—he spoke to Jazz.

In that moment he had two options. Rush to Jazz like he did in the past, when he was nine and she was ten, and it seemed like she could solve all his problems. Or he could disappear into his bedroom, shut her out, and deal with this on his own. Danny started leaning towards Jazz room when his sister spoke again.

“Is something wrong? Do you need help?”

Danny scowled, a deep frown forming on his face as Jazz started to rise from her chair.

“I’m. Fine,” he said through gritted teeth. “Just, go back to whatever you were doing, Jazz.” He swivelled towards his door and marched across the landing, slamming it such as soon as he was inside and missing the hurt expression that flickered across Jazz’s face as she returned to her work.

In his room, Danny pressed his back against the door and slid down to the floor. Of course Jazz would think something was wrong, and that he needed her to fix it. Of course,

He raised his arm and stared at it, poking and prodding the solid skin. There were no spasms, no tingles, and no numbness. Just flesh and bone, and everything else that goes into making a human limb.

Maybe Jazz was right about the problem, but Danny was determined to handle it himself. He flexed his fingers, watching them closely, feeling the pull of his muscle.

He had a word, a definition, for what happened. It hadn’t taken him long to think of it, the twenty minutes of running from the Nasty Burger to Fenton Works was more than enough.

Intangibility.

Danny heard the word spewed from his parents’ mouths enough times. It was purely theory, like everything else related to their work. Intangibility was supposed to be the ghostly ability to pass through solid objects. Just like his hand and the fry, or his arm and the table.

Danny, a human, had turned intangible. It explained everything, why he had been dropping things and tripping so much lately. But he couldn't think of something to explain _it_. The whole situation terrified him. If he really was turning intangible, what else could the portal have done to him?

It was hard to understand the exact science behind the portal’s creation. Danny’s parents blathered on about it incessantly, but he was no ectologist. The portal was supposed to combine electricity with ectoplasm to create a link between the two worlds, something made both human and ghost. A part of the machine worked by seeking out energy signatures that matched the sequence of basic paranormal abilities. Such as invisibility, flight, and intangibility.

If those sequences had somehow been imprinted on his DNA… but, was that even possible?

Danny groaned and let his head drop, bringing up his knees so he took up as little space as possible. Nothing made sense. One week ago everything had been so easy. He had just been a teenager at the start of what would probably be a less than lucrative high school career.

Now he was a… a _freak_.

He shook his head as his breath caught in his throat, curling his fingers into his hair and tugging slightly. It was getting harder to breathe, and as Danny tried to rise, his socks slipped on the hardwood floor and he thumped back down.

The room was too small, the air was too stale. It smelled like ozone, and electricity, and Danny’s heart was thudding in his chest, and _oh god_ , he was going to die, he was _going to die_.

His whole body tingled, then went numb. If Danny weren’t so terrified, he may have marvelled at the way _whoosh_ could be a physical sensation. There was a hot flash of pain, and he was jolted out of his panicked state by his back hitting the floor. Slowly, he uncurled himself, letting his muscles relax, and opened his eyes. The ceiling above him was white and metal, the floor below cool to the touch. On either side of Danny were tall racks filled with blasters, pistols, and all manner of ecto-weaponry he couldn’t even think of how to describe.

He had gone intangible again, but this time his whole body, and now he was trapped in the weapons vault below his bedroom. The vault, tucked under the first floor stairs and behind the kitchen, had walls of reinforced steel two feet thick. At one point in time they had only been a couple inches, but after a faulty weapon malfunctioned and nearly blew apart half the house, some modifications had been made.

Danny sat up slowly. He still felt numb, but he was solid. He could feel the panic rising again and quickly pushed it down. Don’t think about it, ignore it, there were more important things to worry about. Like how he was going to get out.

The new walls had the added benefit of being soundproof. Behind Danny was the door. Large, circular, and riddled with numerous locks. On the outside, at least. Inside the only thing that gave it away was the small seam between the door and the wall, otherwise the surface was completely smooth.

His first instinct was to reach for his phone. He patted his pockets, and found the distinctive rectangular mass to be missing.

Danny closed his eyes as he tried to remember where it was. Did he have it when he went to the Nasty Burger? Did he have it when he left? Had he even pocketed the device in the first place? A disappointed, strangled sound, left his throat. He didn’t _know_.

The phone was such a constant that Danny hardly ever noticed when he _did_ have it on him. It was not like people were tripping over themselves to text him anyways. It was just as easy to forget whenever he left it behind.

Wherever the stupid thing was, it couldn’t help him now. All he could do was wait until someone opened the door on the outside, which might not happen for days. Unless…

Danny glanced up at the ceiling. There was no denying it now, somehow he had the ability to turn intangible. It scared him.

The portal really hadn’t just shocked him. It had done something on a fundamental level; imprinted, genetically altered, whatever. It didn’t matter. Somehow, he had a superpower now—or a ghost power—that he could use to escape.

Danny stared at his hands, wondering how one would go about turning intangible. He pictured the pale blue aura of his fingers at the Nasty Burger, tried to remember the slight prickle and the spreading numbness. But he couldn’t focus, because he already felt so numb, and there had been that one instance of pain that made his mind stutter. It was nothing the pain of the portal, but it was still not something he desired to feel again.

Danny shook his head and swallowed. He had no choice, not unless he wanted to starve a mere five feet from the kitchen. He pushed past the numbness, ignored the fear, and focus on his legs folded underneath him.

A light blue glow had just started to build when there was a loud whirring. Danny whipped around and stared at the door as it started clicking rapidly, the concealed lock mechanism sliding out of place. There was a resounding clank and hiss as the door shifted a couple inches, and the room itself seemed to take a breath when it slowly opened.

Maddie stood on the other side, a number of half-finished weapons cradled in one arm. She pushed her goggles up her forehead, revealing wide eyes to go with surprised ‘oh’ shape her mouth had taken.

“Danny, what are you doing in here?” she asked.

“Um, the door was open, and I thought I heard a rat?” he suggested. “It kind of closed on me when I got in there.”

Maddie’s eyes did a quick sweep of the room, taking in the pristine floors and the shelves free of dust. There weren’t any vents in the room—Danny realized suddenly he would have suffocated before he starved—and no shadowy corners for a rodent to hide in.

“You know the vault is off limits,” she said. She walked past Danny and started stacking the in-progress weapons on a free shelf.

“ _Now_ ,” Danny muttered quietly. Like the lab, there had been no rulings against entering the weapon’s vault a week ago. In fact, Jack sometimes had Danny help with reorganization and moving the guns between there and the lab. The only difference was the vault had a door, though every Fenton knew the password and was registered on the genetic lock.

“Is this about the portal?” Maddie asked. She had finished her task and was now standing in front of Danny, hands on her hips, as she stared down at him.

“What?” The corner of Danny’s mouth twitched. He hated how casually she mentioned that thing.

“I know your father and I said there was a chance an entity would attempt to breach the portal at some point, but that doesn’t mean you need to arm yourself.” Maddie crouched down and placed a hand on Danny’s head, ruffling his hair. “If any of those malevolent miscreants come through, your dad and I will protect you.”

“Right, yeah, of course,” Danny said. He rose and brushed imaginary dirt from his jeans. “I- I know that, thanks, Mom.”

“Of course, sweetie.” Maddie smiled and shifted her hand to her son’s back, guiding him out of the vault. The door swung shut behind them and beeped when the locks slid back into place. “We’re taking a break from work right now, I thought I’d make some lunch.”

“And fudge!” Jack added, poking his head out of the kitchen doorway.

Maddie sighed. “I don’t think we have enough ingredients for that.”

“Then we’ll get some! Come on, Mads!” Jack bounded forwards and grabbed his wife’s hand, dragging her out the front door.

Danny blinked, then glanced towards the basement stairs. Jazz was probably still huddled at her desk, doing homework or research, oblivious to the rest of the house.

The portal was calling to Danny again, not that it had ever stopped, but he had a different reason for wanting to go down there now.

When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he purposefully looked away from the portal. To his annoyance, its swirling viridescent surface reflected on the computer monitor, the focus of his attention. In each corner of the lab, hanging down from the ceiling, were stationary cameras. The small, blinking red lights on each one were the only hint they were actually on.

Danny’s parents had designed the system to automatically store security footage on the computer hard drive at the end of each day. The entire lab ran on a separate power grid from the rest of the city, dubbed Fenton Electric, and remained unaffected by blackouts. Theoretically, the cameras could run indefinitely.

Danny dropped onto the chair before the computer and tapped a random key, bringing the screen to life. There were three profiles. _Jasmine_ , _Danny_ , and _The Fentons_. While Jazz and Danny did have their own personal computers, the one in the lab had served as a family device for as long as he could remember. Danny clicked his parents’ shared account and hesitated when a password prompt popped on screen.

Maddie took security very seriously, hence the numerous heavy locks on the vault door, but Jack could be a little more lax about such things. Not to mention he probably forgot the password all the time, which meant it had to be something easy to remember. Danny confidently typed the word ‘FUDGE’ in all caps and grinned when the computer unlocked. The screen was covered in shortcuts and icons for various ghost related programs and projects. He ignored them and clicked a small picture of a camera.

Danny easily found the day of his accident by searching the date, and the cursor hovered over a frozen image of the empty lab for a few moments.

Did he really want to do this? Simply remembering the accident brought him enough pain, he could only imagine what watching it would be like. But he needed to know.

Danny double clicked, and the video filled the screen. Skipping ahead to the moment he entered the lab, Danny leaned back and watched himself. He clenched his fingers around the hem of his shirt as the Danny on screen walked into the portal, nervously stretching the fabric. The video had no sound, but Danny was thankful for that.

Electricity danced at the portal entrance and was quickly followed by a brilliant flash of light. The image shook and grew fuzzy, bars of static blocking half the picture and a distracting layer of noise obscuring the rest. Danny could barely see the thin pinpoint of light grow at the portal’s center, the dark shadow of his eerily still body trapped inside.

A blurred figure drifted out of the portal. It had light hair, and some kind of dark clothing. Its eyes were half-lidded, but even with the poor colour of the disrupted cameras, they glowed a bright acid green and made Danny’s stomach roll.

It had to be a ghost that escaped the portal as soon as it opened, making it out before Danny himself did. But even as he thought it his gut clenched and he knew he was grasping at straws.

The figure collapsed, and there was a single bright flash before the cameras finally went dead.


	4. Hide and Seek

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long delay with my updates. I moved to Germany last month for a year of studying abroad, and things are now starting to settle down.

**_Brief warning for a certain lovable misfit’s bad mouth._ **

.

**Chapter 4**

_Testing, Testing_

.

Danny spent the rest of the night and all of Sunday looking over his shoulder, expecting a pale, ethereal being to drift through the walls at any moment. There was no denying what he had seen. A ghost came through the portal. That was it, plain and simple; the only logical explanation.

His parent’s work was mainly theoretical. They claimed to have energy readings from ghosts, distorted pictures and blurred video footage, but never before had they seen a ghost’s full, nearly physical form. Danny wasn’t sure what to think now that he had. One of Jack’s favourite tirades was about how dangerous ghosts were. A menace to all things living, nothing more than protoplasmic blobs of post-human consciousness that could neither feel nor comprehend true emotion.

Now there was one here, in Fenton Works, and Danny had never felt more paranoid in his life. The energy the ghost released damaged the cameras, so he hadn’t seen where the ghost went, or if it was even still in the lab when Danny himself exited the portal. It could be long gone, or hovering over his shoulder at that very moment. Danny shivered.

“If you’re cold, you should put on a sweater, sweetie,” Maddie said.

Danny glanced up from his dinner—macaroni and cheese and ectoplasm, if the green tinge to the already toxically bright cheese was any clue—and gave his mother a tight-lipped smile. “I’m fine.”

Across the table, Jazz narrowed her eyes as she stabbed at a piece of macaroni. “You’re acting peculiar,” she said.

“What? No I’m not.” Danny shook his head, avoiding eye contact in favor of studying the food before him.

“Yeah, you are.” Jazz’s fork clinked against the plate as she set it down. “If you would talk to me for just a couple minutes, I could-”

“Jazz,” Maddie interrupted sternly. “What have we told you about using your brother for psychological studies?”

Jazz dipped her head and mumbled, “Not to.”

“That’s right!” Jack said, puffing his chest out. “We Fentons have minds as strong as our muscles! We don’t need a psyche- psycha-”

“Psychoanalysis?” Jazz offered.

“Yes!” Jack shouted, shovelling spoonfuls of questionable noodles into his mouth.

Danny swirled the orange and green mixture with his fork, glaring at the bright streaks as his thoughts consumed him again. If there really was a ghost floating around the house, what would it do? It had been days since the thing escaped the portal. If it had been found, Maddie and Jack would have already announced it to the whole world. But since that hadn’t happened yet… the ghost hadn’t actually _done_ anything, not that Danny knew of.

A tingling sensation spread up his leg, like a thousand static shocks, and he froze, staring at the limb. It stayed solid, but the sensation didn’t go away. He thought back to the cognitive side effects he had read about in cases of large electrical shocks.

Danny gripped his fork tightly, his knuckles turning white. So that was it. The portal _had_ damaged him. He was _broken_ , it wasn’t just the strange ghostly—

“May I be excused?” Danny asked. He stood up before either of his parents could answer, dumping his remaining macaroni back into the pot, and quickly stowing his dishes in the dishwasher. “I’m tired and I’ve gotta go back to school tomorrow, so… um, yeah, goodnight!”

He ran up the stairs and practically dove into his bedroom, kicking the door shut behind him. His footsteps were light as he paced back and forth across the carpet, rubbing his arms and biting his tongue.

 _Ghostly_. That was the answer. Everything that was happening to him, falling through stuff, not seeing his reflection, _floating_ , it was all things ghosts could do. Danny dropped into a crouch, hugging himself tightly and curling his toes against the carpet. He practically _was_ a ghost, and his parents hated ghosts.

“No, no, that’s not it,” Danny insisted, mumbling to himself. “I’m _like_ a ghost. I’m still alive, and ghosts aren’t alive, I’m just… I’m just weird.”

He held his breath, squeezing his eyes shut, just hoped. Hoped it was a dream and all he needed to do was wake up, hoped he could turn back time and _not_ step into the portal, hoped this was just some kind of personal hell and he was really dead.

Danny shook his head, casting the thought away. He had ghost powers and that was it. But he didn’t know how to control them. If he went intangible or invisible in front of his parents, that would be the end of him.

“I need to find that ghost,” Danny muttered. He needed to learn to control his newfound abilities, and what better teacher could he have than an actual ghost? It would be risky, especially if his parents had been right all along and ghosts were malevolent creatures, but it was his best shot.

Danny dug his knuckles into his thigh, grinding hard enough to leave a bruise. The pain was brief, but there was also something reassuring about it, something grounding. He focused on the sensation as the tingling faded from his leg.                

He may never be normal again, but he could pretend.

Couldn’t he?

.

Danny waited until everyone else was asleep before sneaking down to the lab. With the lights off, he relied on the ever-present glow of the portal to see. It was even more mesmerizing in the dark, casting long shadows with its fluctuating light and filling the lab with its haunting song. He hated it.

After several minutes of sifting through cupboards and drawers, Danny had a small collection of ghost detecting prototypes. None of them ever proved to be successful during testing, but then again, neither did the portal.

Danny cleared off a section of the counter and laid the prototypes out. The first one was a metal sphere with a single button on top. Pursing his lips, Danny dubiously examined the device. There wasn’t any kind of screen, or speaker. Just smooth metal. He shrugged and pressed the button.

Nothing happened.

“That’s… totally expected.” Danny sighed and set it down, then reached for the next one. It looked like an old flip phone, only much larger. The triangular screen was dark, but there was a soft backlight on the numbered buttons. Danny pressed the one, and a green pulse of light spread from the point towards the other side of the screen.

“Okay,” Danny muttered. His thumb skimmed over the buttons, and this time he pressed five. Several small dots appeared as the pulse passed. He froze, his breath hitching and eyes widening. He looked up, expecting some kind of ethereal shape to be hovering inches from his face, but there was nothing there besides the cupboards.

Danny frowned and looked back to the sensor. There had been six dots. The light reflecting off the prototypes caught his eye, and Danny scrutinized them closely. Six dots, six ghost sensors that may or may not work, but definitely used some kind of ectoplasmic energy to function.

“At least it works.” And Danny was almost certain he knew how, or at least what it did. One press sent out a pulse, and each button scanned for different types of ghostly energies.

He held it out and swung towards the stairs, pressing buttons at random. Most of them did nothing, but when he pressed seven, the screen glowed. Danny paused and pressed it again. The glow was soft and white, spanning the left side of the screen. He started turning, shuffling his feet in a smaller circle.

The light wavered as he turned, and Danny glanced upwards looking for a source. When his gaze turned back down, there were two lights. He paused, and slowly swung the sensor back and forth, pressing the button repeatedly. When he turned almost a third of the way around, the middle of the display thinned until it went dark, leaving one bright spots along the front edge, and another at the point.

Turning all the way, Danny planted his feet and looked up at the portal. It was as endless and enticing as always. His hands shaking, Danny walked forwards. The sensor’s screen got brighter as he approached, though the reading at the point stayed steady.

The sensor started to whine, and Danny flinched in surprise, nearly dropping the device. Leaning forwards, his eyebrows scrunched together as he scrutinized the screen, pressing the button faster and faster so there was less time between pulses. The light started to move, convulsing and waving as the whining grew louder. It gathered together at the centre of the edge and stretched towards the point, towards him.

Danny whipped his head up to see twining effervescent tendrils reaching out to him.

That’s when the sensor exploded.

.

It was the scent of smoke and burnt flesh that roused him. Danny’s head ached and his nose burned from the smell. He groaned and blinked, his head lolling from side to side as he tried to remember what happened. The portal? No, that was old news. It was something else.

He sat up slowly, raising a hand to rub his eyes, then hissed when he moved his fingers. His vision cleared, and he stared down at shiny, dark red skin. Then the pain hit him.

Danny groaned, curling around his hands, and struggling to rise while keeping them cradled against his chest. He looked around and spotted the emergency sink. He shoved his hands under the tap, and the motion sensor activated. Cool water came pouring out and Danny sighed in relief.

They weren’t as bad as they looked. The tips of his fingers and heel of his palms were burnt, probably the source of the blood, but it had already stopped flowing. Caught in the creases of his skin, the blood must have spread across his hand and made it look worse. His palms themselves were bright red and stung, but were otherwise fine.

When the water stopped, his hands started feeling hot again. But he couldn’t keep them in the sink forever. There was a first aid kit in the cupboard underneath, which Danny nudged open with his foot. He crouched down and reached forward with his elbows, bracing them on either side of the white box. He bumped his head on the counter once and dropped the kit twice, but otherwise managed to set it down on the counter without difficulty. Actually opening it was another matter. The small, sliding latched required something much smaller than elbows.

Danny leaned on the top of the kit to keep it still and pressed his knuckles against the latch. He slipped the first time, breaking the sensitive skin, but managed it on the second try. He took the items out one by one with his teeth until he reached a packet of burn cream.

Part of him wanted to go get his parents, but a hot ball of unease rested in Danny’s gut at the thought. This was his second accident in the lab, but more than that… more than that…

He shook his head. His mind was too empty to think of a proper excuse in the heat of the moment, he just _knew_ getting his parents involved was a bad idea.

Ripping the packet open, Danny squeezed the cream onto his hands and gently patted them together. It stung too much to rub, but already the soothing effects were taking place. He sighed contentedly, then proceeded to to wrap his hands in gauze. He did a poor job, the bandages layered too thickly over the relatively unharmed middle of his palm, and slipping on his fingers, but it was good enough.

Danny repacked the kit and replaced it under the sink before facing the rest of the lab. A couple feet from the portal was a charred piece of equipment, several loose bolts scattered around it, and he finally remembered what, exactly, he was doing in the lab when he should be sleeping.

Looking for a ghost.

Keeping a wary eye on the portal, Danny inched towards the broken ghost sensor, then swept the debris into the corner of the room with one swift kick and retreated. Beyond the normal swirling, the portal didn’t move.

A little of the tension left Danny’s shoulders and he looked to the remaining sensors. He briefly considered going back to bed, starting again tomorrow after school, but he couldn’t wait that long. The sooner he found the ghost, the sooner he could learn to control his new abilities.

As long as none of the remaining devices had as catastrophic reactions as the last one, he’d be fine. Danny gave each of the four remaining sensors cursory examinations before attempting to use them. There was nothing particularly special about each one. The last one—he thought it was the newest—was very blocky. A slab of metal, a raised circular screen was set in the middle, two funky antennas and a small lightbulb at the top, with a series of buttons along the bottom.

Danny started reaching for it, but let his hand drift towards the more compact sensor dwarfed by its side. His parents’ newest inventions have a habit of failing spectacularly. It would be better to settle for something a little more tested.

The sensor Danny did grab fit neatly in his palm. Barely the length of his pinky and just as wide, the flat rectangle was as simplistic it could be. It wasn’t made out of the usual steel alloy the elder Fentons normally favoured, but a yellowish-golden metal instead.

He remembered a conversation from a couple weeks ago, when his parents were doing some of the final wiring for the Fenton Portal. Pure metals, like silver and gold, reacted strongly to high levels of ectoplasm. Electrum could be substituted for both.

There were five small lights lined up along the middle. They were all off, and it was hard to see with the tinted light of the portal, but from what Danny could tell they were green, yellow, orange, and red. The last light was too dark for him to discern.

He flipped the device over, looking for a way to turn it on and finding a miniscule switch on the bottom edge. There was a soft click, a sound that shouldn’t have been audible even in the quiet of the lab, as he slid his thumb across it.

The first light lit up immediately.

Remembering the other sensor, Danny held the electrum piece closer to the others, then backed away several feet. The light stayed steady. He glanced at the portal and swung the sensor in that direction. The lights started dancing, flickering up to red. The final light blinked twice, a deep purple, before Danny let his hand drop.

Finally, something his parents made was working right.

.

Seven hours. Seven mind-numbing, soul-sucking hours of walking around the Fenton residence, and that stupid green light never wavered. Danny’s eyes burned and his feet dragged across the carpet when he finally trudged into his room and collapsed on his bed, glaring at the Fenton Trace-Detector, as he had come to call it.

Plus the acronym made him chuckle.

He didn’t know how strong a ghost’s signal should be, but considering the way the portal made the lights react, green meant a ghost was in the vicinity, but too far away to lock onto fully

“I hate this,” Danny muttered, finally closing his eyes. He had barely taken a breath before his alarm went off, loud and grating and the last thing he wanted to hear. Danny groaned, covering his ears with his hand and shoving his face in his pillow.

Maybe, if he ignored it long enough, it would go away.

“Time to get up, little brother. You’re going back to school today, remember?”

Or it would attract his overbearing older sister.

“Don’t remind me,” Danny grumbled, but with his mouth on his pillow, it came out more as unintelligible moaning. It might as well have been.

With a great deal of exaggerated effort, Danny slapped his alarm clock to shut it off and quite literally rolled out of bed. He thumped against the floor, groaning loudly when his headache flared.

Stupid ghosts, stupid defective Fenton tech.

He grabbed a pair of jeans from the floor and a shirt from the back of his computer chair, changing quickly. He couldn’t find matching socks, but figured no one would notice one of them has a red stripe around the ankle.

Danny’s hands were still wrapped, and he didn’t feel like struggling to undo his handiwork. Looking out the window, he noted the way the tree outside his window swayed, and found his old blue hoodie with the extra long sleeves. He’s still half asleep as he plodded back downstairs, and didn’t even notice he was still holding the FTD until he slapped it down on the table.

“What’s that?” Jazz asked as she pushed an apple in his direction.

“Uh, some computer thing. Tucker gave it to me,” Danny explained hastily slipping the FTD up his sleeve.

Jazz eyed it for a moment, then shrugged and started packing her bag together. “Whatever you say. I’m heading out early, I want to see if Mr. Falluca will give us a pop quiz today. Need a ride?”

“Uhhhh,” Danny answered, turning his face towards his arm.

“Okay. See you there.”

He didn’t move until he heard Jazz’s car start, rumbling quietly as she backed out of the driveway and pulled way. He could hear it for much longer than he normally would have.

Danny sat up slowly and took the FTD out again. The green light was still on. With a device to small, he wasn’t sure how long the battery would last, if that was even what powered it, and shut it off before stuffing it in his pocket.

Danny batted the apple Jazz gave him between his hands. He didn’t feel up to eating that morning, too busy lamenting over the day ahead. Would Sam and Tucker be mad? They sent him a few texts yesterday, but Danny hadn’t  read them or responded, too preoccupied with the ghost that could be hovering over his shoulder. He glanced at his phone. There hadn’t been any new messages that morning.

He quickly typed out that he would meet them at the usual light on their way to school, then shoved it back in his pocket. Mad or not, they would be there. That’s just the kind of friends they were.

Danny could hear his father long before he hit the stairs, although that’s nothing unusual. With Jack’s big size, his footsteps were heavy enough to shake the house out of its foundation. Danny was certain that even if his father were a leaner man, that would never change.

“Good morning, Dann-o! Ready for school? Get a good sleep?” Jack asked as he started up the coffee machine.

“No,” Danny said.

“That’s great!” Jack plowed on. “Your mother and I are going to run some tests on the portal today, isn’t that great?”

“Sure.”

“Of course it is!” Jack boomed.

Danny rubbed his temples. His father’s loud voice was making his head hurt more. He pushed away from the table and stood, heading towards the living room to find his backpack. The last place he remembered seeing it was behind the loveseat.

“Have fun at school!”

“Hmm,” Danny hummed, leaning over the couch. He stretched his arm out, fingertips just brushing the strap of his backpack. Danny’s cheeks puffed out as the backrest bit into his stomach and he leaned forwards just a little bit more. Before he even realized it, a tingling feeling was spreading across his body, and he fell through the couch. His chin bounced on the carpet, but by some miracle he didn’t slip down into the basement.

Danny grabbed his backpack and rolled away from the couch, splaying out on the living room floor. He squeezed his eyes shut. He felt sick. If something like that happened at school in front of people, it wouldn’t take long for him to go from geek to freak. And that’s when the tests would start.

As the tingling faded, Danny knew his body was solid once again and opened his eyes. His mother was standing at the entrance of the living room, staring at him.

“It’s not what you think!” Danny shouted as he scrambled up into a sitting position. He clung to his backpack, a barrier between him and his mother.

Maddie’s eyebrow quirked. “I think you’re trying to get out of going to school, mister,” she said. “But I’ve already called the school to tell them you’re returning today. You’re going to miss the first bell if you don’t hurry.”

She turned away without another word, but it took Danny another minute or so before he could relax and stand. She didn’t see anything, it was fine. _She didn’t know, she didn’t know._

He repeated it over and over like a mantra as he put on his shoes and walked out the door, still clinging to his backpack. But with every step, his dread only mounted.

School, people, _Sam and Tucker_. There was no avoiding it now.

Danny swallowed thickly, pulling his phone out as he reached a crosswalk. Since he sent his message, Tucker had replied with a smirking face, and Sam with one of those little purple demons, the smiling one. He shut off the screen and examined his reflection. There was still a little discolouring along his cheekbone, but it was almost gone. The lichtenberg figure was still there, noticeable enough that he could see it in the dark screen.

Tilting his head down, Danny let his hair hide the mark as best as it could. In a few days it would be gone, one less reminder of his horrific experience. He had enough of those already.

Danny was so focused on not being noticed by anyone else, he was startled when Sam’s hand dropped on his shoulder and yanked him back. He had almost walked right by his best friends.

“I didn’t think you’d be in such a rush to get back to school,” Sam joked. Danny examined her expression. Her smile seemed a little strange, stretched too tightly, and her own gaze jumped across his face, but she didn’t look mad.

“Dude, what happened on Saturday?” Tucker asked. His expression was similar to Sam’s, but his smile was more genuine. “Is everything alright?”

There was that question again. Danny smiled back, taking a subtle step back from Sam. His shoulder was starting to tingle with pins and needles, he didn’t want to risk her hand suddenly falling through it. “Yeah, everything’s fine. I just wasn’t feeling that great, you know?”

“It was Sam’s salad, wasn’t it? The smell of tofu makes me sick too.” Tucker grinned when Danny actually chuckled. Sam seemed pleased enough she didn’t even slug the techno-geek for the comment.

“You ready for today?” she asked as they started walking.

Danny rolled his shoulder, hoping to dispel the tingling, but if anything it grew stronger. “I just can’t wait for it to be over.”

“I feel you, man.” Tucker nodded solemnly.

Danny spent most of the walk in silence, fading into the background while Sam and Tucker chatted. He kept a careful eye on his shoulder, and after a while decided it was just a side effect of the accident rather than something ghostly make him feel that way. It did nothing to unravel the ball of nerves in his gut.

With his hands in his front pocket, Danny’s thumb drifted over the FTD. He mentally counted the lights, going back and forth across it’s surface. It was a minor distraction, but the repetition was soothing.

They rounded onto the final street and the school came into view. It was still several blocks away, perched on a hill at the end of the road. There was a line of busses at the curb and far ahead of them were other walking students. Danny’s fist curled around the FTD, the corners biting into his injured palm. He managed to stifle his hiss of pain, only earning a brief glance from Tucker, who was walking beside him.

“You ready?” Sam asked when they only had one street left to cross.

Danny hoisted his backpack higher and shook his bangs out. “I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

He stepped out onto the asphalt. There was no going back.

The first couple steps onto the grass were okay. Most of the other students were too caught up in greeting their friends, or groaning over school on Mondays to notice him. But Sam shifted so she was standing on his other side anyways, just another wall between him and then. It was fine until a crumpled ball of paper bounced against Danny’s head and he glanced over his shoulder to see the last thing he wanted on a Monday morning.

“Hey, Fenturd!” A tall boy with slicked blond hair and a very disproportionate muscle mass between his arms and legs had his arm outstretched as he sat on the hood of a car. He was grinning. “I hear you got your brain fried!”

Danny hunched his shoulders and ducked his head, but it was too late. The whispering had started.

“I heard he lost a limb.”

“Then how’s he walking, idiot?”

“His parents are inventors, I bet it’s bionic.”

“I heard he died for five whole minutes.”

“No, really, it’s true. My mom’s a nurse at the hospital.”

“Get a life, Dash!” Sam shouted, glaring over her shoulder

“Suck it, Manson!”

“Just ignore him,” she said to Danny, her voice level.

“Yeah,” Tucker agreed. “Like someone who had to repeat kindergarten knows what’s up.” He paused, one hand rising to his chin. “Although, he is the only freshman with a car.”

“Planning on flunking the year, Tuck?” Danny asked. It was the kind of thing he would normally say, but it felt wrong today. Fake, rehearsed. The words were cotton in his mouth.

“Whether he plans it or not, it’ll probably happen,” Sam said. She pulled ahead and opened the front door, holding it for the boys.

“Hey, I’m a tech genius, remember?” Tucker said, then went on about his ‘mad skills’ as he tried to defend his honour.

Sam rolled her eyes. “Whatever you say, Tuck.”

.

Danny couldn’t decide who was worse: his classmates or his teachers. He could almost stand the whispers, though it would be better if he couldn’t hear them so well, but the sympathizing looks on his teachers’ faces were too much.

They were just being nice, Danny reminded himself, but the eyes following him everywhere made him feel like a spectacle. It was like they _knew_. Every time he dropped a pencil, every time he tripped, they were thinking it. “ _Oh, that poor boy, he’s ghostly._ ”

Danny’s grated nerves only set his powers off even more, making everything that much worse. He fell through the floor on his way to the second class. He made it back up stairs before his friends could notice, huffing and puffing behind Sam and Tucker as they reached the door, but there’s no telling who _could_ have seen.

Considering no one pointed at him and shouted, “Ghost freak!” Danny figured he was in the clear.

Third period before lunch, Danny didn’t have either of his friends to keep him company. But by some miracles, neither were his bullies. For the next hour, he could just be another bored student. Nothing more, nothing less.

“Welcome back, Danny,” the redhead beside him said before the class started. The boy smiled, showing off his well kept braces.

“Thanks, Mikey.” Danny smiled back, but the expression slipped when Mikey gaped and he remembered the scar. He spent the rest of the class with his nose to the desk.

At lunch Danny found a small corner table and waited for Sam and Tucker to arrive. His knee bounced as he sat there, back to the rest of the cafeteria. He was starting to regret not eating the apple Jazz gave him that morning. He’d completely forgotten to grab lunch before he left and his stomach refused to let him forget. Then again, he wasn’t sure he would have been able to keep it down anyways. The tingling in his arm hadn’t let up either despite hours going by.

Danny groaned and lowered his head to the table, staring down at his lap. He slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out the FTD. The ghost was probably still at Fenton Works, but he turned the device on anyways.

The green light winked up at him. Danny jolted upright and looked around. The ghost had followed him.

Being as inconspicuous as possible, Danny held the sensor out in front of him, hoping for a rise in energy, but nothing happened. He bit his lip and glanced around once more, then set the FTD on the table and stood up. He back away, and when he was nearly at the wall, the green light went out.

“Dude, what are you doing?”

Danny lunged forward and snatched up the FTD before Tucker or Sam could get a good look at it. “Just, uh, there was a draft?”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Sam asked as she sat down, taking out her tofu sandwich.

Danny gritted his teeth, taking a generously long blink, and sat back down. “I’m fine, really.”

Why did everyone keep insisting there was something wrong with him?

He scooted to the end of the bench when Tucker dropped his tray next to Danny, shoving his backpack between their legs on the floor. Tucker didn’t comment, but glanced at the space between them several times.

“How was art?” Danny asked, looking at Sam, desperate to pull attention away from himself.

“Pretty good, although all last week all we did was easy stuff. They should really offer a class for the people that don’t need to go over the basics. But today we got to break out the colour pencils.” Sam waved her hands in the air and rolled her eyes in exasperation. “I brought my charcoals from home and did basically whatever I wanted. As long as the assignment gets done, who cares what I’m doing in class anyways? My parents just won’t shut up about how ‘refined’ it is.”

She set her purple spider backpack on the table and pulled out a sketchbook, flipping through it quickly. “Just wait until they see this.” She laid the book flat and spun the book around so Tucker and Danny could see. Spanning both pages was a swirling darkness, terrifying, swallow faces crying out from its midst.

“Man, that’s dark.” Tucker whistled.

“Right? They’ll probably send me to a therapist again.” Sam cackled as she closed the book and put it away, popping the last crusts of her sandwich into her mouth.

Danny stared at the backpack, brow furrowed. He and Sam have been friends for a long time. Not as long as he and Tucker, but since elementary school. In all those years, her biggest adversary had always been her parents. There was nothing she liked more than defying their every idea of what a proper young lady should be like.

Danny was pretty sure Sam would still be the way she was even if her parents supported it, which was the great thing about her. But it made him uncomfortable, sitting there, knowing how wrong she enjoyed looking in their eyes.

What would she say if she knew about him?

He cradled his face in his hands and sighed despondently. Maybe he could say he was sick and skip the rest of the day.

Danny flinched as his right hand spasmed, and he slammed it against the table.

“Dude,” Tucker said. “Did you have those bandages before?”

Danny shook out his sleeve, hiding his twitching hand from view, and gave Tucker a shaky smile. “I, uh, burnt myself taking something out of the oven. Forgot the gloves. Idiot Fenton, right?” He chuckled.

“You don’t like cooking,” Sam pointed out.

“I could learn!” Danny snapped and pushed off the table. “I’m just, I’m gonna go for a walk. See you guys in health.”

He grabbed his backpack and stepped around the bench, ignoring Sam and Tucker’s confused looks as he left the cafeteria. The moment he stepped into the hall and the doors closed, the noise inside swelled. He could hear several people say his name.

Danny hefted his backpack onto his shoulders and headed for his locker. On the second floor, by the North stairwell, he stopped and stared at the silver 555 scratched across the top. It didn’t have a little black plaque like the other lockers, and Casper High was apparently too cheap to replace the one that was lost.

After nearly a minute of staring at the jagged marks, Danny lifted his hand and pressed it against the cool metal. His fingers continued to twitch, tapping randomly against the door. He leaned forwards and closed his eyes, pushing his hand forwards.

There was resistance at first, then his arm lurched forwards as the resistance disappeared. His fingers brushed the cord of his gym bag and he opened his eyes.

Danny’s arm was submerged in the door almost up to his elbow. The metal around his arm seemed to waver slightly. It took a second before he suddenly jerked his arm out and stumbled back until he hit the lockers behind him.

Danny slid to the floor and wrapped his arms around his knees, the FTD sitting in his lap. The green light taunted him, staying strong and steady. He let his eyes drift shut again and ran his thumb over the small bulbs. He didn’t move until the bell rang.

.

It wasn’t an exaggeration to say Danny leapt from his desk and ran through the halls the moment the last class finished. He was almost out the door when a beefy hand snagged the collar of his shirt and yanked him back.

“Yo, Fenton. You were gone for a week. You know what that means?”

Danny sighed, his stretched out toes just touching the floor, and looked over his shoulder. “I don’t know, Dash. What does it mean?”

“You’ve got a week’s worth of beatings to catch up on,” Dash said.

“And I’ve got a week’s worth of homework. Doesn’t mean I’ll go through with either of them,” Danny deadpanned. He twisted his shoulders, pulling himself out of Dash’s grasp, and fixed his shirt.

“Too bad it’s not up to you. Right, Kwan?” Dash glanced at the Asian boy beside him, who had a similar disproportionate physique.

“Yeah.” Kwan nodded and crossed his arms.

Just as Dash raised his fist, Danny glimpsed a flash of blue. At first he thought it was the ghost, until he heard a feminine voice say, “You’re such fucking idiot, Dash.”

The buff blond spun around, looking for who had spoken, and Danny used that opportunity to slip away. He walked home alone, having avoided Sam and Tucker in the halls to slip out unnoticed. His little run in with Dash almost ruined it, but Danny mentally thanked whoever it was that managed to piss Dash of more than Danny’s mere existence did.

On the way home, he kept an eye on the FTD. The test at lunch proved something to Danny. The ghost hadn’t just followed him to school, it was _following_ _him_. Everywhere. He could picture it so clearly, a pale, ethereal being hovering over his shoulder or twirling in the air above his head. His only choice was to confront it directly.

He bided his time, picking away at the piles of homework he needed to catch up on. Maddie and Jack were in the lab, but Danny needed to wait for Jazz to leave the kitchen. So far, she had been there for hours. Of course today would be the day she decided to start tutoring.

Danny was doing his math homework when he heard the front door open and shut. He glanced at his clock—it was almost ten—and leaned out his door.

“Tutoring all done?” Danny called.

A second later Jazz’s head appeared as she started climbing the stairs. She paused, a light frown on her lips, and looked back over her shoulder. “Yeah, they just left.”

“Cool.” Danny shrugged, then went back to his work. He had just finished a question, and the correct answer was written neatly at the end of a long equation. He erased, and wrote a messy forty-two instead.

Danny leaned back and looked to the hall again. Jazz was at the landing now, her hand still on the railing, watching him closely.

“What?” Danny asked sharply.

Jass blinked then looked away. “Nothing,” she said and headed for her room.

After he heard her door click shut, Danny shoved his homework aside and stood up. He shoved his hands deep in his pockets and quietly crept down the stairs. He could hear his parents working down in the lab, and after a moment’s deliberation, pushed the door open.

“Mom? Dad?” Danny called. The only answer he got was the hum of the portal. . Slowly, he stepped  down, stopping on the last step and peering around the wall. His parents were standing in front of the portal, Maddie with a clipboard in her hands, and Jack holding one of the sensors Danny didn’t test last night. Both of them are wearing large headphones plugged into a square bulge tucked into their shoulder pockets.

They didn’t notice him.

Danny’s gut twisted as he watched the portal swirl. He wanted to say something, warn them about how dangerous it was, but he swallowed his words. Before his parents could look up, Danny dashed across the lab to the open weapons rack, grabbed a small pistol, and ran back upstairs.

“Yeah, this is for you!” Danny said aloud, waving the ecto-gun in the air. He opened the fridge, pushing aside a tray of brownies, and reached for the very back where two red buttons glare from the back wall. Danny punched the second one and stepped back.

There was a sharp hiss as a hole in the ceiling opened up, and a clear glass tube dropped down around him. The tiles beneath his feed bobbed, then the section of flooring was pushed up through the tube. Danny tapped his foot as he watched the space between the first and second floor go by. For a moment he could see outside, then he rose through the final floor and the platform clicked as it settled into place. The moment he stepped off, it went down again and the opening closed.

Danny glanced around the Emergency Operations Centre, or the Ops-Centre for short. Even more than the neon sign hanging over the Fenton’s front door, the Ops-Centre was the eyesore for the whole street. A large, UFO shaped extension on the roof of Fenton Works, it was held in shape by a large number of metal arms and braces. Inside it was filled with control panels, and screens, and a fridge with Jack’s emergency food supply.

But Danny wasn’t interested in the Ops-Centre. The door leading onto the roof had a tendency to stick, so Danny kicked it open, wincing when it banged against the outside of the structure. He stepped onto the gravel and walked towards one of the only spaces that didn’t have any kinds of antennas or satellites.

Taking out the FTD, Danny held it in one hand and the pistol in the other. He wasn’t totally sure how to use it, but he felt safer having it.

“Okay,” Danny said. “I know you’re following me.”

He walked in a small circle, lifting the ecto-gun. “I don’t want to hurt you. But if you try to hurt me, I will.”

The sound of skittering pebbles made Danny spin around, thrusting the gun towards the noise. He looked down the barrel at a pigeon. The bird cocked its head then took off, forcing Danny to duck as it flew right over his head.

Danny scowled, waiting for the sound of fluttering wings to fade, and started walking around the roof.

“Come on, I need your help!” Danny pleaded. He glanced at the FTD just in time to see the yellow light flicker. Bolstered, he looked up and spoke again. “I just need your help! Something’s wrong with me, and a ghost is the only one that can help me.”

He could feel his heartbeat quickening. Every second, he expected a ghostly face to suddenly show itself inches from his own. With every second it didn’t happen, his nerves only mounted. “Come on!”

The yellow light flickered again and Danny twisted around. His heel bumped against the edge of the roof and he threw his arms out, reeling as he tried to regain his balance. He fell against the ledge, his arm flying out and smacking against the stone. Danny shouted in pain, his burns aggravated, and accidentally let go of the gun. It toppled over the edge of the roof and fell into the backyard.

Rolling onto his stomach, he leaned over the edge of the roof and spotted the weapon gleaming in the grass below. If the ghost was hostile, there was nothing to protect him now.

Danny scrambled to his feet, holding tightly onto the FTD, and started backing up.

“I know you’re here!” he shouted. “I don’t have my gun anymore, it’s just you and me. Show yourself!”

The rooftop was silent.

“Show yourself, come on!” he shouted. The FTD’s yellow light flickered again. “Come on! Come on! Come on!”

Danny’s shoulder bumped against something and he spun around. He screamed in surprise when he saw two mad, bright green eyes and tripped over his own heels. As he fell, Danny squeezed his own eyes shut, and he felt something cold and icy deep within his chest rise and burst open.

He could see a bright flash even through his closed eyes and cringed, waiting for the pain. It never came. He just felt cold. He uncurled, bracing himself against the gravel, and paused. It didn’t feel like he was touching the stones, but more like…

Danny opened his eyes to see a pair of white gloves covering his hands. He wasn’t wearing his jeans and sweater either, but what appeared to be a black jumpsuit. Even more than that, everything looked sort of off.

Sharper, more detailed, but also distant and glassy.

Standing up, Danny looked over the rooftop to see the Amity Park skyline, then turned back to the Ops-Centre. He flinched and sucked in a sharp breath as he saw the ghostly figure floating in front of it. Danny’s new wardrobe slipped from his mind as he took in the white hair, bright green eyes, and the way the figures shoulders and torso just faded away.

It was the ghost from the video.

He stepped forwards, and the ghost shifted as well, making him freeze in place. When it didn’t make another move, Danny took that as permission. But the closer he got, the more he realized something was wrong.

The figure was more defined now, and it only moved when he did. Standing perfectly still, Danny peered out of the corner of his eyes. He couldn’t see anything beside him, mimicking his moves, but the ghost was there. Looking at him.

Dread settled in Danny’s stomach as he took another step, and another, until he was right in front of the Ops-Centre. There was a sickly green mark on the right side of the ghost’s face, like lightning. Danny blinked and the ghost blinked too. He looked down at the FTD. Steady green and flickering yellow.

His grip slackened, and as the FTD fell, the blood drained from Danny’s face. His eyes widened, teeth clenched tightly, and he sucked in a sharp breath. He saw the bright glow cast on the gloves, then dropped to his knees and screamed.

 


End file.
